Step Up program

Step Up addresses the needs of all students by providing individualised support for learning. Our aim is to provide opportunities for all students to improve academically and to achieve their full potential.

Program Organisation

The program is organised across two semesters for all students in Years 3-6:

• Semester One -Years 3 and 5 Literacy (Reading Comprehension and aspects of Writing )
• Semester Two -Years 4 and 6 - IMPACT (Problem Solving in Mathematics)

The program is delivered by a team of class teachers, Support Teachers Literacy and Numeracy (STsLaN) and highly trained teacher aides. Our school has restructured all operations to enable our teacher aides to participate in the running of this program.

Step Up is designed to complement the teaching of reading comprehension, aspects of writing and problem solving in mathematics in all classrooms. Students are supported in either the classroom setting or the Step Up teaching area.

Teaching Elements

Reading

The reading comprehension strategies that the program focuses on include:

• Activating prior knowledge,
• Synthesising,
• Questioning,
• Summarising,
• Visualising,
• Skimming,
• Self-monitoring,
• Predicting,
• Scanning,
• Making connections,
• Inferring.

(Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies a Practical Classroom Guide-Sheena Cameron 2009)

These strategies are consolidated using a variety of text types at an appropriate level of difficulty for each group of students. Each group follows a structured, focused sequence of teaching.

Writing

Writing focuses on a written response related to the key reading comprehension strategy for each week.  The writing strategies that the program focuses on include:

1. Plan for Success
2. Sizzling start
3. Tightening Tension
4. Dynamic Dialogue
5. Show, don't tell
6. Ban the boring bits
7. Exciting endings

(The Seven Steps to Effective Writing –Jen Mc Veity)

Mathematics

IMPACT (Inspire, Model, Practise, Connect, Apply, Transform)

The problem solving strategies include:

• DaD - Draw a Diagram
• PPW - Part Part Whole
• Number Lines
• MaD - Multiplication and division triangle
• Visualisation
• Using colour as a bench marker

Problems are differentiated and graduated in difficulty using the following resources:

• Think board –SEE, PLAN, DO, CHECK
• 20 Questions in 20 Days (regional resource)
• U2B (Upper 2 Bands) additional lesson material